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Hello from Disneyworld!

I finished my CME at 5 PM today, and so I had the evening to go and see DisneyWorld. I only had this evening, and the Theme parks apparently take turns staying open late. Tonight it was the Magic Kingdom's turn. They would be open until 11 PM. I wanted my first visit to Disney to be the Magic Kingdom anyway, so that's where I went. I was hoping to find some KP stuff there, but alas, it was not to be. More on that later.

It was late in the day so none of the characters were actually out and about. So there was no chance of meeting Mickey, much less KP. But I bought my ticket (which was expensive!! but what the heck....it's Disney for crying out loud!)) and went in. I was right there on Main Street USA with Cinderella's Castle just down the way.....I have 87 pictures, but right now I'm only going to show you one at the end. I shopped around and looked for anything I could find that was KP related. There was nothing. I found everything else from HM to Jonas Bros. to Lilo & Stitch to Phinneas and Ferb to HSM to Buzz Lightyear to Toy Story and everything else inbetween, plus everything from every single Disney movie made........but not one single thing from KP. After talking to some of the personnel, they said that the only active KP thing was the KP adventure series in Epcot Center, but they also said that there probably wouldn't be any merchandise there. The only place where KP merchandise might be found was going to be in Disney Hollywood Studios area or Downtown Disney area. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to be able to go over there as I fly back home tomorrow.

But even so, Magic Kingdom is fun. I toured all around and visited the Hall of the Presidents which was a nicely narrated series by Morgan Freeman about our most notable presidents, and then President Lincoln appeared. Now this is all animatronics. The figure moved very naturally as he recited the Gettysburg Address. At the end of the presentation, all forty four presidents, including Obama, were presented all in a group in animatronic form. Both Washington and Obama spoke. It was really neat and quite moving really.

I also went on the Pirates of the Caribbean theme ride which had inspired the movies, and it was interesting. However, Captain Jack Sparrow looks exactly like Johnny Depp. I wonder if they did that after the movies were made....

At 9 PM, they had the SpectroMagic parade and there was a series of floats and characters that went through a 20 minute parade up main street and in front of Cinderella's castle.

At 10 PM they had the fireworks display behind and above the castle, which was timed to music and narration.

All in all, it was really very stirring and a beautiful experience. I do recommend it highly if you can get down to Orlando to see it. One of these days, I plan to come back and see the rest of it. I will leave you with one of my pictures then. I have to figure out a way to put the rest up somewhere else.

EDIT: Okay, I resized the picture and we have a new modification on the board!

Thanks, Canuck. It was fun. Today, it's turning into an ordeal trying to get back home. I arrived at the Orlando airport 1 1/2 hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I figured that was enough time to get checked in and through security. Only I found the line to the Southwest counter was fully.....one.....quarter.....mile........long.... ............(or at least it seemed to be that long.........but I really don't think I was that far off in my estimation...)

It took me 75 minutes to get through that line and get my bag checked in. I hurried through security as much as I could and ran to the gate.........

...and missed it by two minutes..........

It was a perfect storm of conditions. Something like 14 or 15 people missed the flight because of the giant logjam. They had to re-route me through St. Louis, then back to Dallas, then to Midland. It's a 2 1/2 hour wait at the St. Louis airport, which is why I'm on the computer right now.

I was supposed to be home at 2:30. Instead, it's going to be more like 8PM................

Thanks, Canuck. It was fun. Today, it's turning into an ordeal trying to get back home. I arrived at the Orlando airport 1 1/2 hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I figured that was enough time to get checked in and through security. Only I found the line to the Southwest counter was fully.....one.....quarter.....mile........long.... ............(or at least it seemed to be that long.........but I really don't think I was that far off in my estimation...)

It took me 75 minutes to get through that line and get my bag checked in. I hurried through security as much as I could and ran to the gate.........

...and missed it by two minutes..........

It was a perfect storm of conditions. Something like 14 or 15 people missed the flight because of the giant logjam. They had to re-route me through St. Louis, then back to Dallas, then to Midland. It's a 2 1/2 hour wait at the St. Louis airport, which is why I'm on the computer right now.

I was supposed to be home at 2:30. Instead, it's going to be more like 8PM................

URGH. Fortunately, I haven't encountered such problems. Then again, I've only taken four plane trips in my life; the two times I left from Detroit Metro, I was at least 2 hours early, and at LAX I arrived at least 3 hours early.

Still, I feel for you... it's gotta tank to get shuffled around like that.

URGH. Fortunately, I haven't encountered such problems. Then again, I've only taken four plane trips in my life; the two times I left from Detroit Metro, I was at least 2 hours early, and at LAX I arrived at least 3 hours early.

Yesterday and today were broiling hot here in the Go City area, so we mainly stayed indoors with the AC cranked up. Yesterday I vacuumed the coils under our refrigerator (always a royal pain to do...); then just sat around reading or watching TV. Today, I went out to do some shopping. Then in the afternoon, I started my laundry which I finished shortly after dinner. Had to reboot my computer a little while ago because I couldn't type anything on my keyboard. I'd turned the machine on earlier today to do some on-line banking, then put it into "Standby" mode while I ran my errors. When I woke the machine back up, though, I couldn't type a thing. After double-checking all my connections, I switched the fool thing off and restarted it. Must have done the trick, because it's working just fine now...